


Home

by strawberryklance



Series: Family [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Parenthood, Past Child Abuse, just mentions, mostly just, nothing graphic!!, or nothing specific, the angst is very minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryklance/pseuds/strawberryklance
Summary: Keith and Lance give Sam a home.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> there are implications of past abuse and the effects of that! but nothing graphic or specific

The house is a lot cozier than Sam expected it to be. She _has_ had her fair share of careless foster families and institutions with lots of children, torn up furniture and cold atmosphere. This house is different, though. The inside is all warmth and colorful, soft couches and armchairs, walls littered with photos of her new guardians - these people who for some reason decided to adopt an eleven-year-old freak like herself instead of adopting a baby like they were supposed to -, some people she doesn’t recognize, and even a couple posters of Beyoncé.

She follows Lance into her new bedroom, a single suitcase trailing behind her. Lance is talking to her, but she isn’t listening - it is a lot to take in. This is where she will be living for a long time. She wants to believe it, relax for once and trust these people who she has already grown too fond of, but a big part of her refuses to believe that anyone would put up with her for so long. That anyone would want to be her parent.

“Here’s your room,” Lance says, his voice breaking through her thoughts. “It’s very bland right now, but we’ll go shopping together at some point to buy you stuff you like.”

Sam nods, looking around. The room has a bed pushed up against the wall, a window on the other side and a desk in front of it. There is a closet to her right.

“You can also move the furniture around if you have a preference with stuff like that,” Lance continues.

Sam’s suddenly fixate on the laptop on the desk. They didn’t - they’re not _that_ generous, are they? Lance follows her gaze and brightens even more.

“Oh yeah! We thought a laptop might come in handy when school starts again and everything. And not just that, obviously, you can use it whenever you want. It’s all yours.”

“You didn’t have to…” Sam says quietly. The laptop looks brand new. They didn’t just give her their old one, they actually bought a laptop just for her.

“We wanted to!”

“Thank you…”

“Hey, it’s no problem at all! We’re happy to get you anything you need.”

Lance is smiling, and it’s so genuine and kind and soft, and Sam really doesn’t want to let her guard down, but she’s been weak to Lance and Keith’s kindness since she first met them. They’ve been nothing but good to her, which is why she’s afraid - she knows from experience that people can turn their backs on you very quickly. They can completely change in a short amount of time and it’s scary. She hopes that one day she’ll be able to stop waiting for bad things to happen.

“Alright, Keith should be back from his meeting with the publishers soon, so I’m going to make some dinner. You can join me in the kitchen if you want to?”

“I think I’ll, uh, unpack some of my stuff and...yeah.”

Lance smiles. “Okay, I’ll come up and knock when dinner’s ready!”

“Thanks…”

The door closes behind Lance, and Sam immediately throws herself on the readily made bed. It’s soft and comfortable, making her relax into it instantly. She looks up at the ceiling, her mind overflowing with different emotions. It becomes apparent that yes, you _can_ be relieved, afraid, hopeful and suspicious at the same time. Everything is just too good to be true.

Sam remembers meeting Lance and Keith for the first time. They were visiting the orphanage, just talking to the workers there, fully intending to adopt a baby or a toddler. But Keith saw her and came up to talk to her after a while. She remembers how awkward he was then, and still is now, but his presence was so inviting and warm at the same time. He told her that she reminded him of himself, he too having been thrown back and forth between foster families. And she felt a spark of hope right then. He was so kind to her, and instead of interrogating her like many others had done, he told her about himself and Lance. He told her that he was an author, and Lance worked as a kindergarten teacher.

“Don’t you want to adopt a smaller child? Everyone else does,” Sam remembers saying.

Keith shrugged. “We were going to, but plans change.”

He had then gone and spoken to Lance, who immediately rushed over to her, introducing himself and holding her hand tightly between his own.

“No one likes me,” she told them at one point, still not convinced that people were actually considering adopting her.

“We do,” Lance said.

“I don’t do well in school,” she said.

“Doing the best you can is what’s important,” Keith said.

“I don’t have any hobbies or talents.”

“You can start a hobby once you’re settled in,” Lance said. “We have no problem paying for stuff like that. Anything you want.”

“I don’t know how to make friends.”

“Me neither,” said Keith.

“I’m --”

“Honey, listen,” Lance said. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll take care of you and love you as who you are, okay?”

Yeah, it’s definitely too good to be true, Sam thinks, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. She doesn’t know if there has ever been anyone who truly loved her. Pitied her, sure. Cared about her, maybe. But loved? It seems too big of a leap. Her biological parents had been...bad, to say the least. They both died in a car crash, and Sam has no issue saying that she’s glad they died. She doesn’t have any happy memories with them - really, that part of her life is an empty void in her memory. She only remembers flashes, and things she sees in her nightmares, but she can’t make out which parts are true. Sure, their death made her an orphan at age six, but she knows it was better than being with them. Some of her foster families have been bad too, but only very few of them lasted for long.

Lance comes to get her for dinner, and she follows him down the stairs. Keith is taking off his shoes in the hallway, and Lance goes to greet him with a short kiss.

“Hey Sam,” Keith says to her, smiling kindly.

“Hi,” Sam says.

“You getting settled in okay?”

“Yeah.”

They sit down to eat, and Sam finds that Lance is an excellent cook. It is, undoubtedly, the best food she’s had in a long time. She shyly tells him so, and his face brightens so sweetly that her heart aches. Keith and him start chatting about random things, their conversation so easy. She glances at the wedding bands on their fingers, at the photos of them scattered around the house. She could get used to this.

 

When nighttime rolls around, Sam is restless. She rolls over fifteen times, counts sheep and sloths and geese and anything else she can think of, and eventually manages to fall asleep. The nightmare is inevitable - new environment, lots of emotions, restlessness = bad sleep. She knows this by now. So when she wakes up in panic, shaking and drenched in sweat, she isn’t surprised. The real surprise is Keith sitting on the edge of her bed with a glass of water, the bedside lamp turned on.

“Here, drink this,” he says softly.

She takes the glass with shaking fingers and drinks in small sips. Her heartbeat slowly calms down.

“Do you get nightmares often?” Keith asks her.

She nods.

“I used to, too. Still do sometimes.”

It’s quiet for a moment as Sam drinks her water. She feels strange - rarely has there been someone there to comfort her after a nightmare. She guesses that Keith heard her thrashing - he doesn’t look like he’s just woken up. He must have been awake the whole time.

“What time is it?” Sam asks.

“Around two a.m.”

Sam gives him back the glass. “Uh, thanks.”

“Are you okay? Do you want to come with me to the kitchen for a while?”

She can tell that he wants to say more, but doesn’t really know what or how. She remembers Lance saying something to her about this - that Keith is bad with emotions, but has the biggest heart.

“He might not understand when you need a hug, but you just have to ask and he’ll give you the best hug ever,” Lance had said.

“Why are you still up?” she finds herself asking instead of answering his question.

“I have insomnia,” he says.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Lance is a really heavy sleeper, though,” he says fondly. “You know, you can come talk to us whenever you have a nightmare. Even if you get them every night. I’m usually up, but if I’m not, then you can come wake us up.”

“Thanks.” How many times has she thanked them today?

Keith smiles at her. “You okay?”

“Um, yeah. I think I’m gonna try to get back to sleep,” Sam says, settling back down and pulling the blanket up to her shoulders.

Keith turns off the lamp, and Sam expects him to leave right away, but his hand goes to tentatively stroke her hair. She relaxes at the touch, and just as she’s about to fall back asleep, she feels a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Maybe everything will turn out okay, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! <3  
> i know it's really short and stuff but it's 4 am and i really want to publish this before i change my mind so i hope it's satisfactory lmao
> 
> let me know if you like it! i might just make a series out of this if i feel like it!
> 
> and happy pride month, everyone!


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